Mitt Romney should not be let off the hook for accepting the establishment notion that GOP candidates basically have to lie their way to the nomination and the White House, but there is also a deeper media narrative at work in this controversy -- namely, the premise that conservatives are out of the American mainstream and that only a left-of-center candidate can win the Presidency.

If Republicans want to defeat Barack Obama they will nominate a candidate like Rick Santorum who will nationalize the election and spend all his efforts from now to Election Day selling Americans on the conservative principles and policies that are necessary to turn this country around -- not "shake it up and restart all over again" like Mitt Romney would do.

If the delegates are assigned according to the Rules, when the roll is called in Tampa there is no reason to believe that with united conservative support behind him, Rick Santorum can’t win the Republican nomination for President once the delegates are free to vote their conscience.

What Romney and his supporters are doing goes beyond spin to demonstrate a pattern of establishment Republican Party leaders publicly giving Romney delegates he has yet to earn and worse yet, unilaterally ignoring the RNC rules to allocate delegates in a way that is favorable to Mitt Romney, but may not stand-up to a challenge at the Republican National Convention in Tampa.